Onni Group filed a zoning application proposing a residential high-rise with nearly 700 apartments in place of the office tower it won City Council approval to build in Fulton Market. The site, at 357 N. Green St., was cleared for an office project in 2023; a later Crain’s Chicago Business report says Onni has since pivoted back to an office plan.
According to Urbanize Chicago, Onni filed a zoning application in 2024 for a residential building in place of the approved office tower plan. The filing outlined a residential scheme with 698 units, ground-floor retail space, 530 parking spaces and 698 bike parking spaces. That proposal called for a 640-foot tower, with 140 of the units, or 20% of the total, to be set aside as affordable housing to satisfy the city's Affordable Requirements Ordinance, per the same outlet.
The residential proposal followed years of work by Onni to secure approval for an office tower at the same address. As Crain's Chicago Business notes, Onni won City Council approval to develop an office building at the site in 2023. Accounts of exactly how big that approved tower was have varied: the Chicago Plan Commission considered a 30-story office tower at the address, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, while Urbanize Chicago's own project archive has described the approved building as a 29-story tower reaching 484 feet. Office square footage figures have also differed between reports, with one account citing 650,000 square feet and an earlier version from The Real Deal citing 676,000 square feet.
Why Onni Held Off on Breaking Ground
Despite reportedly fielding interest from potential tenants, Onni had said it would wait to begin construction until it secured an anchor tenant for the office tower, according to Urbanize Chicago's earlier coverage of the project. That caution tracks with broader struggles across Chicago's office sector. Hybrid work has affected office demand.
Any residential swap at 357 N. Green would need to clear the same regulatory gauntlet the office plan once did. The site's Planned Development would need to be amended, with sign-off required from the Chicago Plan Commission, the Committee on Zoning and the full City Council, per Urbanize Chicago.
Fulton Market's Office Market Isn't Actually Struggling
The twist is that Fulton Market's office fundamentals look stronger than almost anywhere else downtown. The submarket's vacancy rate sits at just 10.9%, the lowest of any submarket tracked by Transwestian data, compared with 22.6% citywide, the Sun-Times has reported. Separately, Bisnow has pegged Fulton Market's office vacancy at just under 15%, still the lowest among downtown submarkets and well below downtown's overall 25% rate, while asking office rents there run about $72 per square foot versus roughly $53 in River North.
Developers haven't exactly given up on offices in the neighborhood, either. Skender has said The Fulton, an 11-story, 535,000-square-foot building at 217 N. Sangamon St., is the only Class A office building to break ground in Chicago since 2023, according to REBusinessOnline. The $350 million project opened in late January about 60% leased, the Sun-Times has reported, with committed tenants including Coca-Cola, Harrison Street Asset Management, BlackEdge Capital and Permanent Capital, per REBusinessOnline. Permanent Capital expanded from a 500-square-foot Fulton Market office to 10,000 square feet at The Fulton, while BlackEdge Capital grew from roughly 9,000 to 15,000 square feet, the Sun-Times noted. The Schwinn bicycle factory building nearby is still being converted from apartments into office space, according to the same report.
A Crowded Apartment Pipeline
Still, the residential case for Fulton Market is hard to ignore. Bisnow has reported that West Loop and Fulton Market together have a proposed apartment pipeline of about 8,500 units, more than the rest of downtown's submarkets combined, and already account for 1,280 of the 3,000 apartment units under construction downtown. Bisnow reported on July 27, 2026, that Vista Property Group was about eight months from delivering 494 units at the nearby Pearl Fulton Market project.
Office construction hasn't disappeared from the neighborhood entirely. Related Midwest's planned 45-story office tower at 725 W. Randolph St. secured Sidley Austin as its anchor tenant and was preparing to break ground, Bisnow has reported, while Sterling Bay has been marketing its 11-story, 197,433-square-foot office building at 345 N. Morgan Street for sale at about 94% leased with a weighted average lease term of almost 11 years, according to CoStar. Onni itself isn't the only developer trading office ambitions for housing in the area: Fulton Street Companies has proposed a two-tower development with more than 1,000 dwelling units at 1200 W. Fulton Street, including 43-story and 27-story towers with 20% affordable housing and 124,000 square feet of commercial space, per The Real Deal.
Whether Onni will pursue the residential proposal it filed in 2024 remains to be seen, after a later Crain’s report said it had pivoted back to an office plan.
